There are many ways in which data can be presented to a user on a user interface. One of the more popular ways is to organize the data into categories and present the categories on one part of the screen. The user may then select a category and in response, the user interface displays data relating to the selected category on another part of the screen. Referring to FIG. 1, for example, a user interface 10 is shown. The user interface 10 includes a left pane 4 and a right pane 6. A disk directory is presented as a set of folder icons 2 in the left pane 4. Each folder icon 2 represents a sub-directory. When the user selects a folder icon, the folder icon is highlighted and files within the sub-directory represented by the selected folder icon are displayed in the right pane 6. In one popular type of categorized presentation, the categories are organized into a graphical hierarchy, such as a tree. Referring to FIG. 2, for example, the folder icons 2 from FIG. 1 are displayed as nodes or “branches” of a tree 12.
Manipulating categorized user interfaces can be frustrating for the user, however, this is especially true when the categories themselves or the data associated with the categories take a long time to retrieve. For example, if the user selects the “documents” folder (FIG. 2) the computer has to retrieve the names of the files located in the sub-directory “documents” so that they can be displayed in the pane 6. However, if one or more of the files is located on a remote computer to which the network link has been lost, the user interface will be frozen, and the user will receive a “wait” cursor 8 (FIG. 3) while his computer attempts in vain to find the files in the “documents” sub-directory.
Thus, it can be seen that there is a need for a method and system for displaying categorized information on a user interface that overcomes these limitations.